Patrick MacKellar

Colonel Patrick Mackellar (1717 – 1778) was a British army officer and military engineer who played a significant role in the early history of North America. He was the deputy chief engineer at the Siege of Louisbourg and the chief engineer at the siege of Quebec in 1759. In later years he was responsible for the design and construction of the town of Es Castell on the island of Menorca.

Early life and career Patrick Mackellar was born in 1717, the son of John, the last Mackellar to be head tenant of a small town. In 1735, probably through the influence of the Second Duke of Argyll Four years later, he was promoted to clerk of the works and posted to Menorca. His aptitude for engineering works was recognized on 7 December 1742 when he was granted a warrant as practitioner engineer, the lowest rank in the Corps of Engineers. In Menorca, he worked on improving the defences of Port Mahon. These defences relied heavily on the great fortress of St Philip at the mouth of the harbour. On 8 March 1744, Mackellar was promoted to engineer extraordinary and on 31 July 1751 to engineer in ordinary; on 1 December 1745, he was also appointed an ensign in Wynyard's Regiment (4th Marines), presumably by purchase.

7 Years War Mackellar first saw active service when he took part in the Braddock Expedition (along with the young George Washington) against Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) in 1755. He was severely wounded in the Battle of the Monongahela on 9 July, when Braddock and 976 British and provincial soldiers out of the 1,459 deployed were killed (67%), but by the following spring he was at Fort Oswego as chief engineer of the frontier forts. It was undoubtedly his recent experiences in New France and the important intelligence contained in his report that prompted his next appointment.

On 4 January 1758, Mackellar was promoted to major and sub-director of engineers and was appointed deputy to Colonel John Henry Bastide in the expedition against Louisbourg, the key to control of the St Lawrence River, the vital supply line of Canada.

The British forces disembarked in Gabarus bay, a couple of miles from their objective, on 8 June 1758 and commenced the Second Siege of Louisbourg. Mackellar initially accompanied the then Brigadier-General James Wolfe on his rapid, left-flanking thrust to encircle the town and to place batteries at the entrance to the harbour on the opposite shore to the town. On 8 July, when Bastide was wounded, Mackellar became the acting chief engineer. Although Wolfe was impatient with the slow progress of the siege (and let his unflattering opinion of military engineers be generally known), it appears that not a little of the credit for the capitulation of Louisbourg on 27 July was due to Mackellar's professional skill. It was not therefore surprising that a few months later, Mackellar was selected to serve as chief engineer in the expedition that Wolfe was to command against Quebec.

In May 1759, the army of 8,500 men assembled at Louisbourg and then sailed up the St Lawrence to Quebec. During the siege of Quebec, the information contained in Mackellar's report proved to be invaluable. Although much of it was out of date, it nonetheless provided Wolfe with the only substantial body of intelligence about his objective, and Mackellar became one of Wolfe's few trusted advisers.

Despite being wounded in an earlier attack on 31 July near the Montmorency River, Mackellar sited the British batteries and conducted all preliminary siege operations against Quebec. He also devised and tested methods of landing infantry from floating stages. He advised Wolfe against a frontal attack upon the city and accompanied the general on his final reconnaissance. was born in Menorca in 1768. He rose to the rank of admiral of the blue, despite being court-martialed and dismissed the service in 1802, and served in Halifax from 1804 to 1810 as agent for prisoners of war and transports and as governor of the naval hospital.

From 1763 until his death on 22 October 1778, Mackellar was engaged in rebuilding and fortifying the harbour at Mahon. One of the main reasons for the relatively rapid fall of Fort St Philip in 1756 had been the proximity of Philip's Town to the fortifications. This settlement had sprung up around the fortress in response to the lack of quartering for soldiers within the fort itself and in the inevitable way that taverns, sutlers, families and less reputable women coalesced around the armies of that time. When the French began their siege operations they were able to use the town to conceal their approach from the fire of the fort and to provide ready material for the building of their batteries.

Following the destruction of Philip's Town, Mackellar designed and supervised the building of a new military town at a distance of about a mile from the fort, which town is now called Es Castell. The town is laid out in a grid pattern with a magnificent parade ground in the centre that is now the town square. In 2002, the bicentenary of the return of Menorca from Britain to Spain, a plaque was erected in his memory in the main street of Es Castell.

Mackellar left interesting and valuable accounts of the principal operations in which he was involved including “Plan of the town of Quebec the capital of Canada . . . showing the principal encampments and works of the British army commanded by Major General Wolfe and those of the French army commanded by Lieut. General the Marquis of Montcalm”. "A sketch of the field of Battle of July 9th upon the Monongahela seven miles from Fort Du Quesne, showing the Disposition of the Troops when the Action began" is considered the best map detailing events during Braddock's defeat. Another notable report was his "A Correct Journal of the Landing of His Majesty's Forces on the Island of Cuba, and of the Siege and Surrender of the Havannah, August 13th, 1762."